Crush Blog Destroy

BOOKS

2009-08-10T17:21:00.001-07:00

I love books, for several reasons. 1. They separate you from stupid people. 2. They are educational. 3. They are entertaining. These are all good reasons to read a book. If you are a slow reader they can be time consuming, and if you are busy (like me) you just don't have time for them. So I am going to run through a series of mini-reviews on books and audiobooks that I have read and/or listened to.

1. The Accidental Billionaires - Read it!

The book chronicles the rise of Facebook, the social network that took the world by storm. This book moves and reads like a political thriller and is worth the time required to turn the pages.

2. Black: Book One, the Birth of Evil - Read it!

The inventive tale of a man who lives in two realities. In the normal world he sleeps, in the fantasy world he wakes. His attendance in both realities swap back and forth. In the dream world he learns of a virus that wiped out most of mankind hundreds of years earlier. In the real world he discovers that its about to happen. Tick, tock, tick, tock. This Stephen King style read will have you on the edge of your seat.

Stephen Hawking's: A Briefer History of Time - Listen to it.

The book chronicles the discovery of time and space and examines the theories involved.

This is an interesting but difficult read. It's hard to keep your eyes on the pages when it starts explaining the quantum mechanics involved in gravity. Just listen to it while you work. It gives you interesting things to ponder on.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - Skip it.

Basically the first half of this book teaches you how to become a douche bag and how to treat women like shit just so you can get a phone number or get laid. I found myself disliking everyone and everything in this book. I don't want to F*** every woman. I want to be a decent person who is genuinely interesting and doesn't give women a laundry list of pick up lines to lure them into my bed.

The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower 1 - Read it!

A gunslinger in a post apocalyptic land full of evil, possession, time travel, and magic, follows the man in black who laces the trail behind him with traps and magic for the gunslinger to fall into. If you like Stephen King, you'll love this. The book creates a fun mythology to follow, I have a feeling the game Fallout has been greatly influenced by this book.

Haunted - Skip it.

You have to be a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan to get through this bastard. The book is a collection of weird and disturbing short stories that kind of come together to make a story-line. I found myself wanting to set it down when a kid looses a stick of wax up his penis, or when another gets his intestine pulled from his anus while he was jerking off at the bottom of the pool and letting the pool pump suck his butthole. Its a grizzly read with stories that are most of the time pointless.

Kafka on the Shore - Listen to it!

The story follows a boy who runs away from home and a man who can talk to cats. The plot unfolds like a season of Lost but leaves most of your questions unanswered. The story is fun and keeps you involved but it definitely takes a weird route. A 15 year old kid has sex with a 50 year old woman who he believes might be his long lost mother. He also gets jerked by a hair stylist that he believes might be his long lost sister. That and other parts are extremely weird but most of it goes unexplained which makes it okay... I guess. The Audiobook is narrated by two British actors who do a great job of playing different peoples personalities. If you don't like the idea of potential incest, then skip it, but I was entertained.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - Listen to it!

David Sedaris's self narrated memoirs are hilarious, sad, awkward, and brilliant. He is a pathetic homosexual man in his 40's who can re-tell the fantastic tidbits of his own history without hesitation or shame. His words read with familiarity and truth. iTunes is selling it for just over $6. It's more than worth it.

The Shack - Read It!

A man is invited to spend a week with god in a shack where his daughter was brutally murdered a year earlier. This is a sad and moving FICTIONAL story that will get you thinking about god and your relationship with him/her... yeah it's one of those books. I'm not one for religion but this was a well written tale.

The Strain - Listen to it!

Vampires, vampires, vampires. Everyone is beating the vampire horse with a stick. I've especially grown tired of this, but this scientific/mythological look at an interesting vampire outbreak will reignite your fascination. Plus, a great bonus for the Audiobook, Hellboy himself narrates it.

World War Z - Listen to it!

Max Brooks takes you into a realistic look at a future zombie war. Fantastic read, but the 15 narrators give the book a whole different experience. Conducted like interviews, these narrators give their fraction of the tale making it feel authentic. Definite WINNER.

Well thats it for books. Working on a few others, keep reading kiddies.

Grandma Lee the 75 year old commedian

2009-08-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

Commedians come in all shapes and sizes. If you haven't seen it, this is the clip from America's got talent with Grandma Lee the 75 year old commedian. She is hilarious!

Originally posted at renostandup.com

What I have been watching

2009-07-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

Video on demand is quite possibly the best thing ever invented. Over the past six months I have been watching The Wire using video on demand. I was one of the people that didn't watch the show when it was on HBO because I never really knew what it was about and with HBO shows you have to be committed to them from the very beginning because missing a single episode really screws things up. When I would tune into a new episode I was always lost and could not distinguish one character from another. I'm glad that I have made the investment to go back and watch what has to be one of the best shows ever made.

For those who don't know, The Wire is a police drama set in Baltimore (mainly the projects), but it's nothing like the crime shows you see on network TV (CSI, Law & Order etc.) Rather, the show has a serious tone when it examines a different theme revolving around drugs and the war on drugs. The first season focused on how police efforts to stop the drug trade was futile in a post-911 America. The second season took a completely different turn and focused on the drug trade and it's affects on blue collar America. The third season shifted yet again and focused more on politics and a really interesting sub-theme about the legalization of drugs. The forth season shifted to the education system and how children are affected by drugs in every aspect of their lives. Finally, the fifth season (I haven't seen it yet) shifted to how the media covers drugs.

While the plots can be slow at times (especially in the first and second seasons) there isn't anything that I can say that hasn't already been said about The Wire except that it should be watched by anyone who likes their TV to be smart, thought provoking, and just damn entertaining. I give The Wire seasons 1 -4, 5 overdoes out of 5.

Blogs about blogging

2009-07-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

You know what I hate? Blogs about blogging. WTF is that about??

Of course these "bloggers" don't start out wanting to write about a blog about blogging. It usually starts with a purpose. Like a blog about computers or puppies or whatever. Then the blog gets popular and everyone wants to read the blogger's blogs about computers or puppies.. then all of sudden something changes! Now the blog is about how popular the blog is and how cool social networking and web 2.0 is.

Well, you know what? I think web 2.0 is gay, so suck it!

What I've been listening to

2009-07-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

In order to save the world from terrible music I want to share what I am listening to. The past two weeks have had me in a real hip-hop mood. What's better than driving around town with a great beat in your ear?

First up is Wu -Tang with Chamber Music. This is the first Wu-Tang album in several years and it does not disappoint. RZA takes lead in this effort and his experience with Quentin Tarantino and other movie directors shires through with tighter lyrics and production. At times it does feel more like a RZA album with him being featured on several songs and skits but that's not a bad thing, though I would have liked to hear Method Man and especially GZA rap over serveral of these beats ( see tracks Ill Figures,Sound the Horns,NYC Crack). Overall, I give Chamber Music 4 killa bees out of 5.

Second is Cage with Depart from Me. This is Cage's second album under the Definitive Jux label and right away it is a departure from his previous work. I for one am all for it. Cage jumps into a darker level of music with several tracks featuring more of a punk sound complete with angst filled lyrics. Many will compare Cage to Eminem and while there are some similarities in the topics they cover (screwed up parents, fucked up girlfriends), their similarities end there. While Eminem is making songs about popping bottles in da club and trying to please his overly white trash demographic, Cage is making songs about the disapproval of falling for a teenage fan and experimenting with some ridiculous beats (Def Jux is amazing when it comes to this). If you are in the mood for some angster rap that doesn't disappoint, check this album out now. I give Depart from Me 4 slit wrists out of 5.

Finally, there is Wale with one of the most anticipated mixtapes of the year; Back to the Feature. I first heard this guy over a year ago with his Mixtape About Nothing and have been hooked ever since. In Back to the Feature, Wale comes in with more of a New York sound than a Baltimore sound, but it sense, you never feel like he want to fall into that mold. Lyrical Wale is still dropping some of the most amazing flows in the game, I won't go to deep into them but you won't hear Kanye or Soulja Boy dropping stuff like this. Listen to the first track "Wordplay" and you will understand what I mean. Overall, there are some ups and downs and while not as good as The Mixtape About Nothing, Back to the Feature features some great tracks like "Chillin" with Lady Ga Ga and "Nothing to Worry About" with PB&J. I can't wait to hear the full Wale debut coming later this year. I give this mixtape 3.5 C4 explosions out of 5. If you want to turn the radio off and avoid its bullshit download the mixtape for free here.

What I have been playing

2009-07-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here I go being a nerd again.

I have become addicted to Final Fantasy VII once again and it's just as good now as it was way back in 1997. All of the androgyny, cross dressing, and chocobo racing are left intact and I couldn't be happier.

I don't really want to go into the story or any of the game play about a game that is 12 years old, but I will say that Japanese people are fucking weird. I couldn't come up with half of the stuff that happens in this game in my wildest fever dream while on acid.

SquareEnix and Sony need to get on the damn re-make already:

Stuff to do this summer

2009-07-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

I found this great article on the mobile version of Esquire, "63 Things to Do Before Labor Day". The only thing I would add would be: enjoy a thunderstorm.

All the dead celebrities

2009-06-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

This past week has just been ridiculous with the numerous celebrity deaths. It got me thinking about my own mortality and how I could fight off death. My solution: Web MD bitches. The Internet is great for finding answers to all sorts of questions, why not trust it to tell me what is wrong with me and my body?? I'm bound to save not only time but thousands, if not millions of dollars by not actually going to a doctor.

Web MD has this nifty tool that let's users enter symptoms and it can come back and till them what is the matter with them. It's simply amazing. Over the past couple of days it has told me that I have a case of hysterical pregnancy, mild rabies, and erectile dysfunction. I knew I was feeling a bit off but I really had no idea until Web MD told me. Now if only it could dispense prescriptions my life would be set.

Bloody True

2009-06-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

I have recently been turned on to the HBO series True Blood. My initial feelings for the series was that it was an obvious rip off the budding Twilight vampire craze thats hitting America. I grew up watching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer series so I've been exposed to this tough girls in a dangerous world story line for almost as long as I can remember. Frankly I was kind of annoyed by HBO for even thinking that going with the flow was a good idea. HBO has been known for its original productions but this seemed a little lacking of its famous spark.

When the series was first advertised they added that it was from the creators who gave us Six Feet Under, which I really enjoyed. So, reluctantly I gave it a shot. I watched the first three episodes and was quite frankly surprised. The first episode has more twists, turns, and plot points, then that silly Twilight movie. The content was also very mature. Sex, drugs, and violence fill each of the the hour long episodes. The characters were instantly likable. The childish innocence of the main character, Sookie Stackhouse, is very believable. Her name is also fun to say in a souther accent, and she can read minds. Bill, the boy-toy vampire is actually played by a british actor, and his accent and body language is more than believable as a souther gentlemen. The other characters are fun and also believable. One character that I have enjoyed in particular is Lafayette, a gay black drug-dealing prostitute who hates inbreed hicks. His interactions with the local trailer trash give a perfect bite of humor in some of the darker episodes.

I completed all of season one and caught myself itching for more. After what seems like almost a year, season 2 has arrived. The first two episodes were simply phenomenal and I hope the winning streak continues. You can rent first season of True Blood on DVD and second season is now airing Sunday nights at 9:00 on HBO. If you like vampires, sex, drugs, and black male prostitutes check out True Blood.

P.S. Stephanie Meyer released her Twilight series 2 years after Charlaine Harris released the first 2 books of her Sookie Stackhouse series. Take your Twilight series and F*** off you Mormon bitch!

I give True Blood 4.5 naked Anna Paquins out of 5.

Surveillance

2009-06-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about having an HD cable subscriptions is that there are some really cool channels that are not available in other subscription packages. One of those channels is HDNet. HDnet is pretty much why HD was invented, there are lots of documenteries about far off places, HD concerts, and HD movies.

HDNet does something that no other channel does, which is play one interesting indie movie every month that has not yet come out in theaters. I find that incredible, but when you have spent a lot of money on an HD TV there had better be a reason to own it other than "it looks pretty". Which brings me to the movie I watched Wednesday night; Surveillance.

Surveillance has been heavily promoted on HDNet the past month and I was really excited to see it. It has everything you could want in a movie. Violence. Check. A murder mystery. Check. Bill Pullman. Double check. It was even written and directed by Jessica Lynch and produced by her father David Lynch. That should have been my first warning about this movie.

Surveillance begins with two masked intruders, breaking into the home of a good looking middle age couple in the middle of the night. The intruders then begin to brutally beat the husband with a machete while the wife watches in horror. She manages to escape only to be run down by the killer's white van. That's pretty much where the movie stops being interesting.

In the next scene we are introduced to the FBI agents (Bill Pullman and Julia Ormon) who are being sent to investigate the carnage that happened at the home as well as another incident. Immediately the movie dives into the typical cliches including and not limited to: cops who don't like FBI, dumb redneck cops, dumb yet sexy drug addicts, a kid that tries to warn everyone but no one listen to, and a twist in the plot that any one who has ever watched a movie can spot a mile away. I don't want to give too much away but I was left feeling very underwhelmed.

I truly went into Surveillance thinking I was going to be wowed but I just left feeling a little bit pissed off because the movie made me feel like I was dumb and would find brilliance in its mediocrity, but what do you expect from David Lynch's daughter?

I give Surveillance 2 machete chops to the neck out of five.

Andy'll Try It

2009-06-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

I was hoping Andy Richter would become more of a presence on Conan than just the announcer.I love the results:

Another one:

Watch me change from a man to a man who hates himself.

2009-06-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I found myself cruising through the empty streets of downtown. Alone with my thoughts, I decided that I should find some entertainment. I always enjoyed a good brain nap on a Wednesday night, so I continued down the main strip of the town until I arrived at the small paper mache theatre. The title above the twin glass doors read Cine-4. The 4 stands for the number of auditoriums. My shoulders slumped when I scanned across the options. Imagine That, starring Eddie Murphey(no thanks). The Proposal, starring Ryan Reynolds and the chick from Speed(gay). Up, starring cartoons(already have seen it, but very good). Last but not least, Transformers 2, starring giant plastic toys from the 80's.

I knew what I was going to do, even though I knew it was wrong. I purchased my ticket for Transformers 2. As I slipped my wallet into my pocket my brain screamed over and over again, "What are you doing!" My body walked to a podium where a shaggy haired teen tore my ticket. "You can still go back!" I screamed at myself. I walked past the boy toward the theatre door. I reached for the door and suddenly paused. A tidal wave of shame suddenly splashed over me. I had just paid to see a Michael Bay film. Even worse, I had just paid to see a sequel to a terrible Michael Bay film.

"Are you going to go in?" A large woman asked from behind me.

"Oh, uh... yes," I relied with great guilt. I stepped into the theatre and took the seat closest to the door. Sitting in front of me a women cradled a baby her arms. A look of disgust slipped across my face. "Who the hell brings a baby to see Transformers?" I asked myself. As the audience settled, a fat teenage boy waddled to the front of the auditorium. He lifted his pudgy fingers to the sides of his mouth and announced that cell phones were not welcome. He put his hands down and started to leave when he suddenly spotted the women with the baby in front of me. He lifted his hands back up and shouted that crying babies were not welcome either. A smile swept across my face. I wanted to hug him. The theater dimmed and the trailers started. This is where I get into the review of Transformers 2. It has spoilers so deal with it as you may.

I'm not going to go through the whole film but I will hit the parts that I feel are important. Michael Bay(the director) does not give a shit about anything except explosions. The entire movie was basically plotless until an old transformer with a cane did us all a favor and filled us in, and that wasn't until halfway through the movie. Heres the the first half of the movie. Sam goes to college. Sam has visions. Bad guys want visions. Sam runs. Of course, lets not forget Megan Fox. Her beauty is overplayed within the first five minutes of the movie. The first shot you see of her, she has her legs spread on a motor cycle. She reeks of slut immediately. In a recent Entertainment Weekly article Megan Fox explains that a Michael Bay movie has nothing to do with acting, and she wasn't lying. It's apparent that she wasn't putting much effort forward. Nobody in the movie was. This brings up the question, if acting's not important, then why are there actors? I don't know what the director is thinking, but he's obviously not thinking enough. This is how I imagine an audition with Michael Bay.

MB:It says here that you haven't been in many movies.

Actor:Nope

MB:Can you act?

Actor:Nope

MB:Okay, can you run on a treadmill for more than 15 minutes?

Actor:Yep

MB:Your hired.

The last half of the movie goes as follows. Robots fight. Racist robots show up. Bad robots want to eat the sun. More robots fight. Humans fight robots. Sam runs. Good guys win. Megatron gets away. Seriously... thats it. Now, the action is phenomenal. But you quickly get bored and just what to see Megan Fox naked. Two thirds through the film I was hoping my cellphone would suddenly transform into a gun and shoot me in the face.

Overall I give this movie one shot in the face out of five.

Harold Ramis

2009-06-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Rob for this tip. Harold Ramis was on Jimmy Fallon and I missed it!!

The Next Tyler Perry/Spike Lee

2009-06-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

I have an idea for a movie and I'm dead serious about making it. First I should explain myself.

I have an odd fascination with sassy black women, you know the type, they go get their hair and nails did, usually work at customer service jobs that they are terrible at, and of course have a baby daddy. I find them hilarious. I know, I know I would be exploiting a stereotype, but whatever Tyler Perry can get away with it, why can't I?

So my movie would be two and half hours of sassy black women debating hot topics of our day like abortion, the economy, and the war in Iraq all while doing the following:

I can sum this movie up in one word: provocative.

The Midnight Meat Train

2009-06-23T19:37:00.000-07:00

The Midnight Meat Train is not a gay gang bang, it's a gorfest starring Bradly Cooper, Vinny Jones, and the guy from Hostel 2 who got his manparts cut off with a rusty pair of scissors. The story is based off a short story from the same author who penned Hellraiser. I originally had no hopes for the Vinny Jones slasher but of course, I was pleasantly surprised. The movie was simply over-the-top with the gore. Lets just say, there's a scene where Sam Raimi's brother gets hit in the back of the head with a massive meat tenderizer causing an insanely bloody digital eyeball to pop out of its socket. Blood then sprays in the face of the man's fellow passengers. Things just get crazy from there including a giant meat hook to the crotch and a women getting her head beaten off her shoulders. The gore continues but the story is what makes the movie interesting. A photographer(Pre-Hangover Bradly Cooper) is looking for darker subject matter for his art. His search leads him into the subway. He suddenly finds a connection in his photos. People who get on the midnight train with this creepy quiet guy(Post-Juggernaut Vinny Jones) suddenly disappear. So of course instead of letting murderous dogs lie he investigates further leading him into a hellish spiral and a sick and twisted finale.

The movie is frankly mediocre but it took me to a familiar place. Classic horror. It had the same vibes as The Ninth Gate, Event Horizon, or The Crow. The kind of childish terror you feel when a character you like is spiraling into a hell you know he's not going to be able to get out of. The close of the film took me back to middle school where film innocence was still present. The film to me was all about that feeling of nostalgia.

Overall I give the film 3.5 dead naked bitches out of 5.

The Collaborator

2009-06-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am the collaborator. JT asked that I contribute to his blog. So I'm doing it. Here it is, my contribution. Months back he tells me he wants to start a blog. The first thought I had was that this could be potentially retarded, or amazing. So... here we go.

Ghostbusters - The Video Game

2009-06-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

It's like it's 1991 again and I'm reliving my childhood, but this time daddy isn't drunk!

I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan and have been waiting for this game since I heard it was in development a few years ago. It went though a few rough patches and at one time it was cancelled, thankfully Atari brought it back to life.

The game takes place two years after the events in the second movie and introduces a new, mute character simply named the 'Rookie'. All other the other Ghostbusters are back too with the original actors doing the voices. It's a lot of fun seeing a skinny Harlod Ramis and a somewhat thinner Dan Aykroyd, both of which wrote the script for the game. I don't want to reveal a lot about the story but it revolves around an evil architect only briefly mentioned in the first movie.

As for the game play, think Resident Evil 4 meets Gears of War. There is a lot of running and shooting with a lot of dark, creepy tunnel exploration. In many of the mission you work along side of the Ghostbusters, but there are several where you go off on your own to earn your stripes.One thing I wasn't expecting were all the boss fights. Most of them were really good but there were a couple that get a bit too chaotic and ended in really cheap deaths.

Overall, I found the game to be a lot of fun and pretty to look at even though it was short and had some control issues(catching a ghost is awkward the first time). The game is a great tribute to fans and should checked out by anyone interested in seeing the Ghostbusters in their full glory.

I give the game 4 punches to the crotch out of five.

Hugs

2009-06-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here is where I am going to go off the deep end. I read an article or watched some show on TV, I can't remember due to all the alcohol abuse, but what ever it was, it was about how an elementary school wanted to ban hugging. The thought behind it being that if kids didn't touch each other so much they would not be as violent or aggressive. I laughed at how dumb of an idea this was. Kids should be allowed to hug. Hugs are amazing. If I woke up everyday and got a hug my life would be awesome. Think if other people had the same experience. There would be a lot less people on depression medication. Anyway, this was just something I wanted to bring up. Fuck, now I need a hug...or some drugs.

The Beginning

2009-06-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

I should preface this blog with what I am doing on here...well I've got things to say and everyone is going to here about them. I have many interests and I want to share my thoughts and feelings about them with the world. Those interests include and are not limited to: music, movies, video games, and the ridiculous things people do on a day to day basis.I warn you now that at times I might sound angry or bitter, but I mean no harm I just want to get a lot off my chest.

I won't be the only one posting on here so I hope that will keep it from getting boring. I have enlisted the help of a long time chum in helping me write. He has more issues than I do so things might get a little bit a weird, maybe a even a little bit gay, who knows.